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I have YSoft Safe Q client installed on my Mac OS X 10.10.5. Client starts everytime on startup but I do not want to. Unfortunately it's not available in list of programs inside System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login items so I cannot prevent it.

Is there possibility to disable program start on Mac boot if it's not listed in login items? Thanks!

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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If it is not in the regular user Login list, then it is most likely in LaunchDaemons.

There are several locations for these, one is for Apple daemons only: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons

The others are to include 3rd party processes,
/Library/LaunchDaemons and ~/Library/LaunchDaemons.

You may also need to remove from
/Library/LaunchAgents or ~/Library/LaunchAgents

Simply remove or zip the process you don't wish to auto-launch & it should be gone at next boot.

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  • 6
    thanks, that helped me, except I needed to delete app's file from /Librart/LaunchAgents as well.
    – Kosmetika
    Sep 10, 2015 at 11:48
  • ah, OK - I'd assumed removing the Daemon would prevent the Agent.
    – Tetsujin
    Sep 10, 2015 at 11:54
  • Nice info... Google search just turns up dozens of articles that all say to configure User & Groups. I hoped this would work... I deleted a likely culprit in /Library/LaunchDaemons. But the WD My Cloud app is still prompting to open on launch. Any other ideas to try?
    – peacetype
    Mar 30, 2018 at 8:54
  • I've no idea, sorry - might be best asking WD.
    – Tetsujin
    Mar 30, 2018 at 9:01
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    Nice idea to 'zip' it! Still in the same place, but non functioning.
    – CousinCocaine
    Feb 2, 2020 at 13:49
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It's also possible to use the official interface to disable a LaunchDaemon:

launchctl disable <service-name>

e.g.,

launchctl disable gui/501/com.microsoft.OneDriveLauncher

will disable Microsoft's OneDrive for the user with UID 501 (the default UID for the user created at install time; run "id" to see what your UID is).

The advantage of this method is that it disables the application for you, but not for other users of the same system, if any.

If you don't know what the service name for your application is, then run launchctl list. This shows a list of all the labels, but not the service labels; e.g., in the above example, it would show com.microsoft.OneDriveLauncher, but not the gui/501/ part. You need to add that yourself.

The man page (man launchctl) has more details.

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Visit these folders. Apple-shift-g from finder.

Find the hidden startups files here. FILES ~/Library/LaunchAgents

 /Library/LaunchAgents         
                               
 /Library/LaunchDaemons     

 /System/Library/LaunchAgents   

 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
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  • 2
    How is this better than accepted answer?
    – Toto
    Feb 19, 2022 at 16:23

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